[IPython-dev] Detecting GUI mainloop running in IPython

[Gael Varoquaux]

On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 12:10:12PM -0700, Brian Granger wrote:
>    * It is not sufficient to call the  relevant function methods in the
>    GUI toolkits (like ``IsMainLoopRunning``)  because those don't know
>    if the GUI event loop is running through the  input hook.

OK, so this is the key part that I had missed. I could even call this a
bug of the various toolkits.

Is there any way to find out if the GUI event loop is running through
the input hook at all?

>    Both matplotlib and ets have code that tries to [snip]

The problem is a bit larger: it's not only about matplotlib, ets and
IPython, it's a fairly general practice for plugin-like code to check if
the eventloop is running before starting it.

So, we have a problem and no solution (yet). The good news (I guess) is
that IPython 0.11 is not in production yet. I am just worried about the
bug reports landing in the various packages.

Thanks for your explanations. If you have any suggestions, I am open to
try things out in Mayavi (which apart for this problem works just fine
with 0.11).

Gaël